


Ikran and Antibiotics

by Wistyfish



Category: Avatar (2009)
Genre: Aliens, Eventual Romance, F/F, Gen, Na'vi, Post-Canon, Post-Movie(s), Science Fiction, Unofficial Sequel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 09:34:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10682577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wistyfish/pseuds/Wistyfish
Summary: Set 30 years after the events of James Cameron's Avatar, A new group of scientists has established a foothold on Pandora. With a better relationship with the Na'vi and a cast of all new characters.Ariadne is the latest dreamwalker on Pandora. She's also like hella bi, dude.I wrote most of this on an airplane, we'll see how it goes.**Disclaimer: I don't own the universe this is set in, I don't have any claim to Avatar (2009), I'm just here to play with the world.**





	Ikran and Antibiotics

**Author's Note:**

> When characters are speaking in Na'vi it is always in _italics_.

It took years for Na'vi and humans to repair their relationship. I wasn't even born when we were booted off of Pandora the first time. I was six during the first reconnection effort and I remember watching the Na'vi delegates step off the spacecraft. I remember thinking that they were giants, staring at their strange hands and clothes, and laughing joyously at their tails. I was thirteen when the Gemini Institute was set up. It was just a re-branding of the Avatar Program, and everyone knew it. I was fifteen when I began studying to be a Gemini Pilot. I studied the language until I dreamt in Na'vi. I studied the topography of Pandora until I was convinced that I knew the cliffs and mountains as well as my own neighborhood. When I was 24 I learned how wrong I was. 

I was stationed near the Eastern Sea, in a new lab. We studied native diseases and microorganisms. I was training to be an interspecies physician. My work as a a Gemini payed for my certification in an year program. It was highly exclusive, and I'm told I only got the position because I was already fluent in the language. It was between me and some guy who had discovered a new airborne pathogen in the Congo. When I was picked, I couldn't believe it. I quit my job, sold all my stuff, and shipped out within a month. I had no intention of returning to Terra Firma. 

For the first few weeks, everything was a dream. I was faster than I have ever been, stronger, more graceful. I loved it. But it was strange to be given a new face. At first I avoided looking at my reflection. Blue skin instead of my beige, golden-yellow eyes instead of my brown. My hair was still black, but too long. I kept it tied in a single french braid to try to hold on to my human appearance as best as I could. I wished I could cut it to my normal bob-length, but Na'vi hair is a little too complicated for a pair of scissors. 

I spent my early days as a translator. I helped the Na'vi in the nearest village understand the doctors' treatments and requests. The goal was that we would be fully staffed by Gemini and Na'vi Doctors by the end of the 8 year training period. Adding human bodies to the mix was too dangerous to continue. When I wasn't translating in the clinic, I was in med school. Life was the same as any other med student, apart from the alien parts. 

It was after three weeks of peaceful routine that I received my first long-distance mission. 

I was sitting in the lab, my Na'vi body uninhabited on the other side of a pane of glass, when the order came in. My boss, a weaselly man with a receding hairline, came through the door with a smirk on his face. 

"Ariadne!" He tossed me the hi-tech screen in his hand. 

"Yes, sir?" I asked, flinching as I caught the screen. 

"You're up for a field trip!" He smiled at me with coffee-stained teeth, "And call me Peter, please."

I jumped up, half in fear, half in excitement. "Where am I going? What's my assignment? How long?" 

"You get to be a part of the newest outreach team. The northern cliff people have a sick Tsahik." He raised an eyebrow. "You're diplomatic relations, if you're up to the task."

"Yes! Yes absolutely!"

"Its a week long trip, travel will be two and a half days each way. Sign your waiver and get your tail to the convoy in the next hour. Refresh yourself on protocols for the Sleep Zone."

"Sleep Zone?" I tried my best to look calm. 

"Don't worry, I'll keep your body safe while you're gone." He winked and I faked a laugh. The Gemini Institute was very very similar to the Avatar Project, except in budget. With unobtanium mining made illegal, the funding for projects like ours is minimal. As a result, the Gemini bodies have a range. Once you enter the sleep zone, you're stuck in your Gemini body until you come back. I would be sleeping in the wild outdoors of Pandora tonight. 

\- - -

Half an hour later I was ready to go. I linked to my Gemini, feeling the strange falling sensation that came with leaving my body. I stood and adjusted my clothes. They were standard issue: grey t-shirt and cargo pants. I wiggled my fingers and toes. They felt heavy from sleep, though I had been awake for hours. I shook my alien body and jumped up and down to wake up all of the muscles. As a motor exercise I consciously moved my ears and tail, reminding my brain how to use muscles that I wasn't born with. I took a last glance at the pod my body was in and saw the technicians setting up life support systems. I wouldn't be in my body for a full week, and it still needed food, water, and muscle stimulation. I took a breath and turned my back, leaving my life in the hands of the technicians... and creepy Peter. Great.

The convoy was rowdy when I approached. There was one other Gemini, Keilan Cooks. He was a nerdy sort of guy from New York. He was loading the small motorized cart with gear and spare clothing for the trip. We also had two human doctors, one I had met, and a Na'vi man I hadn't seen before. 

"Hey, is this the convoy to the Northern Cliff Tribe?" I asked, setting down my backpack.

"Yes," barked the male doctor as he remained focused on his screen.

"Hey, Ari!" Michelle Tran waved at me. "Why so blue?"

"It was funny the first time, Michelle." I said back, laughing anyway. Dr. Tran had arrived on the same ship as me. She didn't have a Gemini yet; hopefully she would get one in a few years, budget permitting. She wore an oxygen mask and a Kevlar vest, like all humans outside the lab. I waved casually at Keilan. "Good to see you up and at-em. How's the knee?"

"It's alright. I have to wear a brace but I'm walking!" He said, lifting his pant leg to show a rubber brace stretched over his right knee. "Ari, this is Ralu, he is the son of the sick Tsahik."

"' _Awvea ultxari oengeyä, Nawma Sa'nok lrrtok siveiyi._ " I said, drawing my hand from my forehead and tipping my chin down respectfully. 

"Yes. May the All Mother smile upon our meeting, Ari." He echoed in English, "I have been telling your people of the state of my mother but it is time we travel."

"I agree, Ralu." Chimed in the other doctor. He turned to me. "I'm Dr. Harold Cray, by the way. I'm in the lead on this trip. Listen to me, don't kill your Gemini, don't do anything stupid." He turned back to Ralu. "Let's get to the Tsahik as soon as possible." 

The doctors climbed into the armored cart leaving the rest of us to walk. Pandora isn't safe for humans, the less time they have to spend outside the better. From the speaker on the outside of the cart came Dr. Cray's voice. 

"Sleep Zone safety rule number one: Be exceptionally careful with your Gemini. If you get hurt, there's no popping back to your body for some R&R. Looking at you Keilan." I laughed. Keilan shook his head at me. I fell silent and Dr. Cray continued "Rule number two: Always take shifts keeping watch at night. If your Gemini is killed while you sleep, it is an inconvenience to the entire operation, and is said to be fairly painful. Rule number three: Listen to your lead- that's me. Anything that I say goes, no questions. Clear?"

"Clear." Keilan, Michelle, and I echoed. 

The safety lecture continued as we exited camp and made our way up the coast.

\- - -

We traveled along the coast, cliffs on our right, churning sea on our left, avoiding the more densely forested areas for the sake of the motorized cart. The sun began to set just as we entered the Sleep Zone. Ralu was visibly frustrated with our speed, but too polite to say anything. He was quick, and made no noise as he wove his way through the coastal trees. I felt brutish in comparison. 

"If you skypeople need to rest, the time is now" he stated as darkness fell in earnest. 

Dr. Cray barked an affirmative through the speaker and we took out our cots. We settled, and Keilan took the first watch. We sat and talked by the light of the glowing plants and we settled into our cots. Ralu would sleep on the ground, despite our offer of a cot. 

"We'll leave at daybreak." Keilan said, rubbing his knee. It was probably sore after the long trek.

Ralu nodded with a tense grin. "How did you injure your leg, Ki-lan?" 

"One of the Omatikaya came to us last month and tried to teach me to climb trees. I fell from pretty high up when a lemur jumped out in front of me." Keilan shrugged sheepishly and Smaoe raised an eyebrow. He glanced at me. 

I translated: " _Keilan was startled by little syaksyuk while climbing a very tall tree_ " 

Smaoe guffawed from his belly. " _Kem amuíä, kum age'!_ " 

Now was Keilan's turn to look to me. "Uh it's an idiom..." I ran my hand over my hair. It still felt weird. "Sort of like... Nice try, but you failed." I smirked at Keilan, who nodded humbly. 

"You speak our language well, Ari." His toungue caught on the r in my name, but I loved hearing my name in the Na'vi accent. "How long have you learned it?" 

I shifted into Na'vi. " _I began my studies when I was a young girl. I have been learning the language for 12 years now._ "

" _Impressive,_ " he continued in Na'vi, " _I have not seen a sky person so correct in their pronunciation._ " 

" _Oh, there are many humans who are better than me. Have you met many.. ah.. sky people?_ " I wondered if it was appropriate for me to use that term. It felt strange. Like I was the alien instead of him.

" _Not many, and I had not seen a dreamwalker until this day._ " He paused and glanced at my hands. " _Your fingers are strange. May I touch them?_ "

I held out my hands, caught off guard for the hundredth time by my own blue skin. I wiggled my long fingers, the little bioluminescent freckles along their backs dancing in the darkness. Ralu reached out his hand, all four fingers, and touched my little finger tentatively. He grinned and tugged on it a little. 

" _May I?_ " I asked. He nodded and I turned his hand in mine. His fingers were longer than mine, and thin. It was easy to think of them as basically human, but the hands stood out to me as distinctly alien. I looked closely at the fingertips, recalling the Na'vi anatomy books I had seen. His fingertips were different from mine, ever so slightly. 

"Can I hold hands too?" Keilan snickered, glancing between the two of us.

"Hey," I said in English, "it's not my fault that your Na'vi sucks."

"Who has a PhD in microbiology? Oh, that's right. I do." Keilan flipped his queue over his shoulder, grinning and showing his sharp canines. 

"Lights out, Gemini." Barked Dr. Cray from the cart.

I shot Keilan an eyeroll and he stifled a grin. 

"Yes, sir."

And then I fell asleep in my Na'vi body for the first time- but not the last.


End file.
